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PeaRidge: "Actually they did not start the war.
It began in Lincoln’s office on April 19, 1861.
The Supreme Court declared that fact."

It's always a pleasure to see Lost Causers publically supporting Supreme Court rulings.
So, tell us how you feeeeeeeel about, oh, say, Dred Scott or Roe v Wade?
Great rulings, right?

No? So you only support the Supreme Court when you can use its rulings to your own advantage? OK.

The historical truth is, regardless of a Supreme Court ruling in a different context, the Confederacy committed dozens of provocations of war in seizing major Federal instalations -- forts, ships, arsenals, mints, etc.
The Confederacy then physically started war at Fort Sumter, and soon formally declared war, on May 6, 1861.

The first Confederate soldier to die directly in battle was Pvt. Henry Wyatt at the Battle of Big Bethel on June 10, 1861.
By that time, Confederates had taken the lives of dozens of Union troops, wounded over 100 and captured as POWs another 500.

So there is simply no disputing who, in early 1861 was the aggressor force.

Unfortunately, most people are as misinformed on the beginning of the war as are you. Firing of weapons, whether in serious hostility or not, does not mean war has been declared.

You may be aware that the first shots were fired by Federal troops on Florida civilian militia in the area of the old Spanish Fort San Carlos in Pensacola in January of 1861. The next day the Star of the West, a federal ship under contract to run supplies into Ft. Sumter received fire and retired from the area of Ft. Moultrie.

Following these events, nothing changed. No declaration of war, nothing.

The same is true of the firing on Ft. Sumter. The seceded states remained in place. No invasion, nothing. Civilian shipping from New York continued to reach Charleston in peace.

The only event related to a declaration of war was Lincoln's issuance of personnel call up and a blockade of Charleston. These commands were signed by President Lincoln on April 17-19, 1861, ordered the Secretary of State to affix the seal of the United States to his proclamation blockading the South, and thus made it official. Under international law of the era, declaration of a blockade is an act of war, and thus after the conflict the United States Supreme Court held the institution of the blockade to constitute the legal commencement of the Civil War.

No doubt you may be inclined to rely on your choice of historians for their opinions....the libraries and Google are full of them. However, for the purposes of consummation of war time issues, the United States government itself affixed the beginning on Lincoln's actions, with no transactional relationship to Charleston Harbor.